Cell phone robbery nets prison

WEST CHESTER — Aiding in the armed robbery of an iPhone and a few hundred dollars in cash has earned a Downingtown man a stay in state prison.

Common Pleas Court Judge Jacqueline Carroll Cody sentenced Cody James Killian, 20, on Thursday to 18 to 36 months in prison on charges of robbery and conspiracy. He had pleaded guilty to the charges in July.

Killian’s attorney, Terrence Marlowe, had hoped to convince Cody to hand down a sentence that would allow his client to serve his time in Chester County Prison. But the facts surrounding the robbery as related by Assistant District Attorney Andrea Cardamone, as well as Killian’s previous contacts with police and a West Whiteland burglary arrest, led the judge to insist on the lengthier sentence.

Cody, however, allowed Killian to serve the time she sentenced him to on the burglary charge to be served concurrently with the robbery sentence.

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According to an arrest affidavit filed against Killian, Downingtown Police Officer Glenn Rasp received a call from West Goshen police in the early morning hours of Jan. 28 concerning a man reporting that he had been robbed in Downingtown.

The victim, Axl Anthony Charowsky, said the robbery had taken place at the home of Killian, a friend he had made while in a drug rehabilitation program.

Rasp, in his affidavit, said he was well acquainted with Killian, after having been called to his home on Brandywine Avenue repeatedly to break up problems Killian has had with his mother.

Charowsky told Rasp that Killian had called him about 2 a.m. that day, asking him to visit his house. When he arrived, Killian and two other men, one of whom he identified as Ryan Cattin, met him. He said he did not know the other man.

He said he and Killian spoke for a while, and at some point Killian asked to borrow Charowsky’s iPhone. He left the room with the two other men, but came back soon and gave Charowsky back his cell phone.

When Charowsky stood up to get a cigarette, he told Rasp, the unknown man punched him in the head and knocked him back in his chair. That man then picked up a steak knife and demanded that Charowsky empty his pockets while Cattin demanded his car keys, debit card, and PIN number. Charowsky said he felt threatened by the men, and did as he was told.

As Cattin and the other man, who was not identified in Rasp’s affidavit, left the home to go to a Wawa, Killian stayed behind to keep watch over Charowsky, the affidavit states. The pair returned a short time later telling him that his car keys and wallet were in his car, and that he should wait 15 minutes before leaving. Charowsky said he found his wallet and keys, but not the debit card or cell phone.

A check of his bank records showed that $550 had been withdrawn from his account while he was being held by Killian. The iPhone, valued at $700, was not found.

Killian’s previous arrest came in 2011, when West Whiteland Police Detective Kristin Lund charged him with helping another man commit a burglary at a business where the friend’s father worked.

The friend, identified in court records as Dylan Roberts, broke into the offices of PAC Strapping Products on National Drive and took various items, including laptop computers, a cassette player, cameras and computer hard drives.

Police were able to identify Killian because he left his car outside a nearby business, locked, with various items from the PAC Strapping burglary visible through the car’s window on the back seat. Employees from PAC were able to identify the stolen items, and investigators found keys to the car inside and discovered other items in the trunk.

The police contacted Killian, and he admitted to helping out with the burglary. He said he and Roberts had left the car near PAC Strapping because he had accidentally locked the car with its keys inside.

Killian was charged with burglary and conspiracy. He was granted admission into the county’s Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program for first offenders in 2012, but was discharged form the program after his arrest in the robbery in January.

Cattin, his co-defendant in the Downingtown robbery, pleaded guilty in August. He is awaiting sentencing before Cody.